Click Chemistry withO-Dimethylpropargylcarbamate for Preparation of pH-Sensitive Functional Groups. A Case Study

Recent advances in self-immolative linkers and their applications in polymeric reporting systems

Interest in self-immolative chemistry has grown over the past decade with more research groups harnessing the versatility to control the release of a compound from a larger chemical entity, given...

Cu(I)-Catalyzed Click Chemistry in Glycoscience and Their Diverse Applications

Copper(I)-catalyzed 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition between organic azides and terminal alkynes, commonly known as CuAAC or click chemistry, has been identified as one of the most successful, versatile, reliable, and modular strategies for the rapid and regioselective construction of 1,4-disubstituted 1,2,3-triazoles as diversely functionalized molecules. Carbohydrates, an integral part of living cells, have several fascinating features, including their structural diversity, biocompatibility, bioavailability, hydrophilicity, and superior ADME properties with minimal toxicity, which support increased demand to explore them as versatile scaffolds for easy access to diverse glycohybrids and well-defined glycoconjugates for complete chemical, biochemical, and pharmacological investigations. This review highlights the successful development of CuAAC or click chemistry in emerging areas of glycoscience, including the synthesis of triazole appended carbohydrate-containing molecular architectures (mainly glycohybrids, glycoconjugates, glycopolymers, glycopeptides, glycoproteins, glycolipids, glycoclusters, and glycodendrimers through regioselective triazole forming modular and bio-orthogonal coupling protocols). It discusses the widespread applications of these glycoproducts as enzyme inhibitors in drug discovery and development, sensing, gelation, chelation, glycosylation, and catalysis. This review also covers the impact of click chemistry and provides future perspectives on its role in various emerging disciplines of science and technology.

Dynamic pH responsivity of triazole-based self-immolative linkers

Gating the release of chemical payloads in response to transient signals is an important feature of ‘smart’ delivery systems. Herein, we report a triazole-based self-immolative linker that can be reversibly paused or slowed and restarted throughout its elimination cascade in response to pH changes in both organic and organic-aqueous solvents. The linker is conveniently prepared using the alkyne–azide cycloaddition reaction, which introduces a 1,4-triazole ring that expresses a pH-sensitive intermediate during its elimination sequence. Using a series of model compounds, we demonstrate that this intermediate can be switched between active and dormant states depending on the presence of acid or base, cleanly gating the release of payload in response to a fluctuating external stimulus.

Triazole-based self-immolative linkers can be reversibly paused and restarted throughout their elimination cascades in response to environmental pH changes.

Mechanistic insights into transition metal-mediated bioorthogonal uncaging reactions

This review assesses the mechanistic aspects of transition metal-mediated uncaging reactions, with the goal of aiding the rational development of new caging groups/catalysts for chemical biology and drug-delivery applications.

Catalytically Active Single-Chain Polymeric Nanoparticles: Exploring Their Functions in Complex Biological Media

Dynamic single-chain polymeric nanoparticles (SCPNs) are intriguing, bioinspired architectures that result from the collapse or folding of an individual polymer chain into a nanometer-sized particle. Here we present a detailed biophysical study on the behavior of dynamic SCPNs in living cells and an evaluation of their catalytic functionality in such a complex medium. We first developed a number of delivery strategies that allowed the selective localization of SCPNs in different cellular compartments. Live/dead tests showed that the SCPNs were not toxic to cells while spectral imaging revealed that SCPNs provide a structural shielding and reduced the influence from the outer biological media. The ability of SCPNs to act as catalysts in biological media was first assessed by investigating their potential for reactive oxygen species generation. With porphyrins covalently attached to the SCPNs, singlet oxygen was generated upon irradiation with light, inducing spatially controlled cell death. In addition, Cu(I)- and Pd(II)-based SCPNs were prepared and these catalysts were screened in vitro and studied in cellular environments for the carbamate cleavage reaction of rhodamine-based substrates. This is a model reaction for the uncaging of bioactive compounds such as cytotoxic drugs for catalysis-based cancer therapy. We observed that the rate of the deprotection depends on both the organometallic catalysts and the nature of the protective group. The rate reduces from in vitro to the biological environment, indicating a strong influence of biomolecules on catalyst performance. The Cu(I)-based SCPNs in combination with the dimethylpropargyloxycarbonyl protective group showed the best performances both in vitro and in biological environment, making this group promising in biomedical applications.

Cu-Catalyzed Click Reaction in Carbohydrate Chemistry

Cu(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition (CuAAC), popularly known as the "click reaction", serves as the most potent and highly dependable tool for facile construction of simple to complex architectures at the molecular level. Click-knitted threads of two exclusively different molecular entities have created some really interesting structures for more than 15 years with a broad spectrum of applicability, including in the fascinating fields of synthetic chemistry, medicinal science, biochemistry, pharmacology, material science, and catalysis. The unique properties of the carbohydrate moiety and the advantages of highly chemo- and regioselective click chemistry, such as mild reaction conditions, efficient performance with a wide range of solvents, and compatibility with different functionalities, together produce miraculous neoglycoconjugates and neoglycopolymers with various synthetic, biological, and pharmaceutical applications. In this review we highlight the successful advancement of Cu(I)-catalyzed click chemistry in glycoscience and its applications as well as future scope in different streams of applied sciences.

Self-immolative base-mediated conjugate release from triazolylmethylcarbamates

A range of carbamate functionalized 1,4-disubstituted triazoles featuring a model aromatic amine reporter group (R) have been prepared via copper(i) catalysed azide–alkyne cycloaddition and revealed self-immolative characteristics under basic conditions.

Gold nanoparticles decorated with mannose-6-phosphate analogues

Herein, the preparation of neoglycoconjugates bearing mannose-6-phosphate analogues is described by: (a) synthesis of a cyclic sulfate precursor to access the carbohydrate head-group by nucleophilic displacement with an appropriate nucleophile; (b) introduction of spacers on the mannose-6-phosphate analogues via Huisgen's cycloaddition, the Julia reaction, or the thiol-ene reaction under ultrasound activation. With the resulting compounds in hand, gold nanoparticles could be functionalized with various carbohydrate derivatives (glycoconjugates) and then tested for angiogenic activity. It was observed that the length and flexibility of the spacer separating the sugar analogue from the nanoparticle have little influence on the biological response. One particular nanoparticle system substantially inhibits blood vessel growth in contrast to activation by the corresponding monomeric glycoconjugate, thereby demonstrating the importance of multivalency in angiogenic activity.

A structure-based design of new C2- and C13-substituted taxanes: tubulin binding affinities and extended quantitative structure-activity relationships using comparative binding energy (COMBINE) analysis

Ten novel taxanes bearing modifications at the C2 and C13 positions of the baccatin core have been synthesized and their binding affinities for mammalian tubulin have been experimentally measured. The design strategy was guided by (i) calculation of interaction energy maps with carbon, nitrogen and oxygen probes within the taxane-binding site of β-tubulin, and (ii) the prospective use of a structure-based QSAR (COMBINE) model derived from an earlier series comprising 47 congeneric taxanes. The tubulin-binding affinity displayed by one of the new compounds (CTX63) proved to be higher than that of docetaxel, and an updated COMBINE model provided a good correlation between the experimental binding free energies and a set of weighted residue-based ligand-receptor interaction energies for 54 out of the 57 compounds studied. The remaining three outliers from the original training series have in common a large unfavourable entropic contribution to the binding free energy that we attribute to taxane preorganization in aqueous solution in a conformation different from that compatible with tubulin binding. Support for this proposal was obtained from solution NMR experiments and molecular dynamics simulations in explicit water. Our results shed additional light on the determinants of tubulin-binding affinity for this important class of antitumour agents and pave the way for further rational structural modifications.

Relative performance of alkynes in copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition

Copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) has found numerous applications in a variety of fields. We report here only modest differences in the reactivity of various classes of terminal alkynes under typical bioconjugative and preparative organic conditions. Propargyl compounds represent an excellent combination of azide reactivity, ease of installation, and cost. Electronically activated propiolamides are slightly more reactive, at the expense of increased propensity for Michael addition. Certain alkynes, including tertiary propargyl carbamates, are not suitable for bioconjugation due to copper-induced fragmentation. A fluorogenic probe based on such reactivity is available in one step from rhodamine 110 and can be useful for optimization of CuAAC conditions.

Investigations into Competitive Cycloaddition/Cyclization or Elimination from 1,1-Dimethyl-propargylcarbamates of Anilines

The copper-catalyzed reaction of 1,1-dimethyl-O-propargyl aniline carbamates was studied and revealed the unexpected formation of oxazolidin-2-ones and alkylamines. An in-depth study of the reaction conditions showed that the formation of these products was highly dependent on the solvent, copper catalyst and aniline substituents. The reaction can be oriented towards oxazolidinones in pyridine and alkylamines in ethanol, whereas cycloaddition can be achieved in dry tetrahydrofuran.

Automated synthesis of a 96 product-sized library of triazole derivatives using a solid phase supported copper catalyst

This article deal with the parallel synthesis of a 96 product-sized library using a polymer-based copper catalyst that we developed which can be easily separated from the products by simple filtration. This gave us the opportunity to use this catalyst in an automated chemical synthesis station (Chemspeed ASW-2000). Studies and results about the preparation of the catalyst, its use in different solvent systems, its recycling capabilities and its scope and limitations in the synthesis of this library will be addressed. The synthesis of the triazole library and the very good results obtained will finally be discussed.

Metal chelating systems synthesized using the copper(I) catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition

The copper(I) catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) is the premier example of a click reaction. The reaction is modular, reliable and easy to perform, providing easy access to molecular diversity. The majority of reported applications of the reaction employ the 1,2,3-triazole as a stable linkage to connect two chemical/biological components, while the potential for metal coordination of the heterocycle itself has received much less attention. In fact, 1,4-functionalized 1,2,3-triazoles are versatile ligands offering several donor sites for metal coordination, including N3, N2 and C5. In this article, we summarize the areas in which the CuAAC has been applied to the synthesis of novel triazole-containing ligands for transition metals.

"Flash" solvent-free synthesis of triazoles using a supported catalyst

A solvent-free synthesis of 1,4-disubstituted-1,2,3-triazoles using neat azides and alkynes and a copper(I) polymer supported catalyst (Amberlyst) A21*CuI) is presented herein. As it provides the products in high yields and purities within minutes, this method thus being characterized as a "flash" synthesis, and was exemplified through the synthesis of a 24-compound library on a small scale.